1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roller bottle handling system for handling roller bottles stored in culture racks and used as containers for culturing adhesive animal cells, and more particularly to a roller bottle handling system which can handle the roller bottles, rack by rack, for thereby automatizing a process of culturing adhesive animal cells in the roller bottles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
According to rearing pattern, animal cells are classified into two types, one of which is animal cells which adhere to a wall surface and are cultured, the other of which is animal cells which are suspended in culture medium and cultured. One known process of culturing adhesive (or periphytic) animal cells uses a large number of roller bottles for culturing animal cells therein. This method of using roller bottles is advantageous, compared with a method of using a large tank, in that the effective area of wall surface to which the animal cells adhere is large. This method of using roller bottles is also advantageous, compared with a method of using a large tank, in that in case of mixing of foreign matters such as unnecessary bacteria into animal cells to be cultured, only animal cells in a roller bottle which contains foreign matters are required to be disposed of, while all animal cells in the tank are required to be disposed of. Therefore, the method of using roller bottles is preferably applied to a culture of adhesive animal cells. There has been developed a system for automatically handling such a large number of roller bottles by storing roller bottles in a culture rack, taking out roller bottles with completed cultures from the culture rack, extracting the cultures from the roller bottles, and filling roller bottles with animal cells to be newly cultured. Generally, a roller bottle handling system employs rotary culture racks for holding roller bottles that are filled with animal cells and a culture medium. One conventional example of such a roller bottle handling system is disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 64-23883.
In the disclosed roller bottle handling system, animal cells are cultured in roller bottles that are stored in an endless array of rotary culture racks which rotate on a track. The roller bottle handling system basically includes a turning mechanism for turning down bottles which have been delivered and erected on a conveyor, a pushing mechanism for pushing roller bottles toward a culture rack to automatically insert the roller bottles into the culture rack, and an erecting mechanism for pushing roller bottles with completed cultures out of the culture rack and then erecting the roller bottles. The roller bottle handling system allows automatization of the various steps of storing roller bottles, filling roller bottles with a culture medium, and inoculating cells into the culture medium in the roller bottles, so that a large number of roller bottles can be handled without human intervention.
In the conventional roller bottle handling system, however, since a succession of culture racks are connected into an annular rack assembly, when one of the culture rack happens to suffer some trouble, it cannot easily be isolated and removed out of the roller bottle handling system. Therefore, the conventional roller bottle handling system is not sufficiently flexible and cannot be quickly recovered from failures of individual culture racks.
Another problem with the rotary culture racks is that any roller bottles stored in a culture rack cannot easily be removed upon demand or inspected daily. This is because a succession of culture racks are connected into an annular rack assembly, and an operator cannot access roller bottles in the culture rack from a backside thereof, but can access the roller bottles only from a front side thereof in the conventional roller bottle handling system.